Cambodian Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith on Thursday rejected the English language newspaper's demand that the government news agency compensates millions of dollars for reproducing its articles in their entirety over the years.

In a recent email to the executive director of the government news agency Agence Kampuchea Press (AKP), the publisher of the Cambodia Daily Bernard Krisher said AKP violated the reporters' intellectual properties. He asks AKP to remove all the articles from its web site and stop posting new articles from the Cambodia Daily.

Krisher said AKP has posted about 500 articles from his newspapers for five years or 2,500 articles in total.

The Cambodia Daily publisher estimated the price of each article to be around 300 dollars.

Responding to reporters' questions at the Phnom Penh International airport upon his return from Fance, Khieu Kanharith said the government cannot accept the Cambodia Daily's demand because the newspaper did not complain after the government news agency AKP started reproducing its articles.

The Information Minister said the fact the newspaper did not say anything from the beginning means it did not mind AKP's practice.